The US:
Matt Stoller explains the history of why US public policy has been twisted to serve the billionaires here. Excerpt: "Someone with great foresight killed the left’s ability to govern, a long time ago....
"Gingrich was an intellectual, as were some of his colleagues. When he first was elected in 1978 as part of what was known as the “New Right,” every young Republican candidate was obsessively reading Robert Bork’s The Antitrust Paradox. In 1995, his goal wasn’t just to pass legislation, but to fundamentally re-gear Congress so it could no longer serve as the brains for the Democratic Party, as it had for the last half century. That was an institutional task, and he set about restructuring the institutions.
"First to go was the Office of Technology Assessment, a nonpartisan think tank that conducted long-term studies on important scientific and engineering topics, like how to decommission the Space Shuttle or early warnings on climate change. Gingrich also slashed Congressional staff by a third, eliminated dozens of subcommittees, and killed budgets for the legislative service organizations that helped specific groups of members, like the Black Caucus, the Caucus on Women’s Issues, the Environment and Energy Study Conference, and so forth. Most importantly, the Democratic Study Group, a network of staff and members who organized the rhythm of the House, disappeared.
"And Gingrich bulled the Congressional Budget Office, which was set up to rival the executive branch’s capacity to govern. “It’s our intention to largely replace CBO [sic] with more moderate economists,” Gingrich spokesperson Tony Blankley said. Other institutions, like the Congressional Research Service, got the message. Fall in line."
China:
Meanwhile, Arnaud Bertrand reviews Xi Jinping's book explaining China's philosophy of governing here.
Excerpt: "[Xi's analysis says] the biggest problems with Western modernization are that it is capital-centered rather than people-centered and that it seeks to maximize capital gains rather than serve the interests of the people."
Bertrand quotes Xi contradicting those who insist China's success originated with its imitation of capitalists' policies: "Following the founding of the PRC, our Party continued to lead the people in carrying out socialist revolution—dismantling the feudal system that had persisted for thousands of years and establishing socialism as the country's basic system. This transformation represented the most comprehensive and profound social change in Chinese history, and laid the political and institutional foundations for China's drive for modernization. During this period, China lagged so far behind much of the rest of the world that even basic household items like kerosene, matches and nails had to be imported from other countries."
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Both essays are well worth reading in full. They clarify the dynamics and history of the differences between China and the US.
